Timecop

In 1863 Gainesville, Georgia, a time traveller with modern laserdot-equipped machine-pistols slaughters five Confederate States Army soldiers and steals their shipment of gold.

In 1994, the Justice Department sends George Spota to the Senate Appropriations Committee for approval on a secret project: the establishment of the Time Enforcement Commission (TEC) to police the new threat of time travel. Spota convinces them that changes to history are already manifesting, evidenced by arms trafficking shipments paid for in stolen Confederate bullion. Senator Aaron McComb volunteers to chair the oversight committee and Eugene Matuzak is nominated as the TEC's first commissioner. DC Metro Police officer Max Walker considers accepting a position with the TEC. Leaving home, he and his wife Melissa are attacked by unknown assailants. Walker is left for dead as the house explodes, killing Melissa.

Ten years later, Walker - now a veteran TEC agent - is sent back to October 1929 to prevent his former partner Lyle Atwood profiting from the stock market crash. Atwood admits to working for Senator McComb, who is abusing his oversight of time travel technology to raise funds for his upcoming presidential campaign. Fearing McComb will erase him from history, Atwood jumps to his death, but Walker catches him mid-leap and returns them to 2004. Refusing to testify, Atwood is sentenced to death and returned to 1929 to complete his fatal fall. Walker and Matuzak agree McComb is a criminal, but need solid evidence.

Surviving an ambush at home by McComb’s henchmen, Walker is assigned a new partner, TEC rookie Sarah Fielding, who is originally from the internal affairs department. They are sent back to 1994 to investigate McComb, and witness a disagreement with his business partner Jack Parker over manufacturing a new computer chip. They are interrupted by McComb from 2004, who advises his younger self that the chip will become highly profitable. The older McComb warns his younger self that they must not touch because the same matter cannot occupy the same space, then kills Parker. Fielding turns on Walker, revealing she works for McComb. After a shootout with McComb's henchmen, Fielding is wounded and Walker escapes back to 2004.

Arriving in an altered future where McComb is a wealthy presidential frontrunner and has shut down the TEC, Walker appeals to Matuzak, who has no knowledge of the changes to history. They realize that the original time machine prototype was never dismantled and that McComb has access to it, allowing him to neutralize the TEC. Matuzak sends Walker back to the past to restore history, but is shot by agents of the now-corrupt TEC.

Back in 1994, Walker finds Fielding in the hospital. She agrees to testify against McComb, but is murdered in her room. At the hospital, Walker finds a record of a recent visit by Melissa, discovering she was pregnant. Remembering she will be killed that night, he finds her and reveals himself to be from the future, and she agrees to make sure his younger self stays home.

That night, the younger Walker is attacked just as before by McComb's men, but is unknowingly aided by his older self. McComb from 2004 takes Melissa hostage and confronts the older Walker with the bomb that will blow up the house, knowing he will die in the ensuing explosion but satisfied his younger self will become president with Walker gone. However, Walker reveals he has lured the younger McComb to the house; he pushes them together, and the two McCombs merge into a writhing, screaming mass before disappearing from existence. The older Walker escapes with Melissa as the bomb explodes, leaving her beside his unconscious younger self and returning to the future.

Back in 2004, Walker finds the future changed once again: Matuzak and Fielding are alive with the TEC at full strength, while Senator McComb disappeared in 1994. Walker returns home to find Melissa alive and waiting for him, now with their young son.

Mike Richardson wrote a three-part story titled "Time Cop: A Man Out of Time" that was included in the launch of the Dark Horse Comics anthology series in 1992.[4] Richardson developed the story, while the comic was written by Mark Verheiden and drawn by Ron Randall. The comic told a story of Max Walker, a Time Enforcement Commission agent whose wife is implied to be dead (though the circumstances of this are unknown). Max pursues an illegal time traveler robbing a South African diamond mine in the 1930s. After capturing the robber and returning to present time, Walker realizes the timeline has been damaged because the criminal's robotic bodyguard remained in the past and was still active. Walker returns to the 1930s and defeats the robot with the help of a local whom he rewards with a diamond. Returning home, the timeline is largely restored but readers see the local became a political leader who helped end Apartheid.

Richardson and Verheiden then teamed up to write the screenplay for the movie adaptation.[4]

It wasn’t at all planned from the beginning that I would make two films with Jean-Claude Van Damme back-to-back. I was approached to do Timecop, and I loved the auspices. (Producer) Larry Gordon was involved with it; Moshe Diamant was a terrific producer; Sam Raimi was involved... It was a really clever story, and I thought it was a chance to make the best movie Van Damme ever made. I said yes and we made it, and it was clear that it was going to be a hit because it previewed through the roof every time. It’s still his biggest hit. So Universal and Moshe Diamant wanted to team us again as soon as possible, so they put Sudden Death together. There was never any question that we would just do Timecop 2. I would never have agreed to that. The last thing you want to do is repeat yourself. That would be awful.

— Peter Hyams, Empire Magazine[5]

The musical score of Timecop was composed by Mark Isham and conducted by Ken Kugler.

In September 1994, a novelization of the film was written by author S.D. Perry was published by Penguin.[18]

The film was followed by a TV series of the same name, running for nine episodes in 1997 on ABC.[19] It starred T.W. King as Jack Logan and Cristi Conaway as Claire Hemmings.

A direct-to-DVD sequel, Timecop 2: The Berlin Decision, was released in 2003, starring Jason Scott Lee and Thomas Ian Griffith, and directed by Steve Boyum.[20] In 2010, Universal Pictures announced a remake of the film, to be written by Mark and Brian Gunn, but it was never made.[21][22][23]

The film, which was originally based on a comic, was adapted into a two-issue comic book series of the same name. A game based on the movie was developed by Cryo Interactive and released on the SNES in 1995.[24] Additionally, a series of tie-in novels by author Dan Parkinson published in 1997–1999 featured the Jack Logan character from the television series.

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